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It was a cool place. Super friendly as well as wonderfully rough and ready. We’d been somewhere else before, so beer was what we got through the most. But we supplemented it with some very nice sashimi, along with some equally welcome, and just as good, yakitori.

To be honest, I don’t include names (if I actually know them), or locations, as I don’t aim or even try to be a travel guide. I want to document them, not supply names, addresses, prices etc. Plus a good number of the bars photographed have been stumbled upon, rather than actively sought out, so even locations can often be tricky. Infuriatingly so at times as there are a few I’d like to return to…

This one though is in Nishi-Ogikubo. Near the station. No idea what it’s called, but the seats outside and the friendly looking owner tempted us to sit down for a few. A decision that turned out to be a very good one.

If you ever decide to write a Tokyo travel guide, it will be unique and certainly a hit with people looking for some depth and a unique experience for their visit to Tokyo. I’ll pre-order already one copy 🙂

20 years ago I could impress people that I had visited Japan and had some unusual food in some chain restaurants, now everybody and their mum is doing that; and nobody will be impressed, it is like an iPhone. I started walking pilgrimages and doing temple stays but even that is getting old-hat. Hanging out at scruffy old restaurants with cool masters or mama-sans in the backstreets of Tokyo must be the new things 😀

No, not a bad start at all. As the menus in these kinds of places often vary depending on what the owner has bought that day, it’s often a good idea to simply ask what they recommend, and go with that. Means you don’t have to worry about not being able to read what’s available, and only have to ask one question.